Saturday, January 17, 2009

Nehalem born and bred. Travis Champ recently released a thirty-poem collection, Old Nehalem Road.

In the hearty tradition of Gary Snyder, Phillip Whalen and Walt Curtis, Nestucca Spit Press is proud to present Manzanita’s Travis Champ, and the release of his collection of poems, Old Nehalem Road.

Featuring thirty poems, all set in Oregon, Old Nehalem Road represents a remarkable literary debut for a 25-year-old poet.

As Nestucca Spit Publisher Matt Love wrote in his introduction to the book:

I first heard Travis Champ read his poetry in January of 2007, at an annual Friends of William Stafford gathering in Lincoln City. He had hitchhiked 80 miles from Manzanita to read one short poem, and when I heard it in a church that winter night, I was transfixed. It voiced the raw wet alienated stuff of what living at the Oregon Coast can do to some people—a perspective few poets had ever conveyed because they had not grown up here, as Travis had. After the reading, I asked him to send me all of his poems with an Oregon connection. I read them and knew at once I wanted to publish them.

Perhaps as equally remarkable is the story of Old Nehalem Road’s production: Champ set all the type for the book, printed its pages on a hundred-year-old press, and bound all three hundred copies of the first edition print run.Published by Nestucca Spit Press.